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The Histories Which We Have Of The Great Tragedy Give No Idea Of The General Wretchedness, The Squalid Misery, Which Entered Into Every Individual Life In The Region Given Up To The War. Where The Armies Camped The Destruction Was Absolute.

-Rebecca Harding Davis

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The Histories Which We

Rebecca Harding Davis

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The Histories Which We Have Of The Great Tragedy Give No Idea Of The General Wretchedness, The Squalid Misery, Which Entered Into Every Individual Life In The Region Given Up To The War. Where The Armies Camped The Destruction Was Absolute.

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War May Be An Armed Angel With A Mission, But She Has The Personal Habits Of The Slums.

Men And Women Thought And Did Noble And Mean Things That Would Have Been Impossible To Them Before Or After. A Man Cannot Drink Old Bourbon Long And Remain In His Normal Condition. We Did Not Drink Bourbon, But Blood.

We Have Grown Used To Money. The Handling, The Increase Of It, Is The Chief Business Of Life Now With Most Of Us.

... While The Light Burning Within May Have Been Divine, The Outer Case Of The Lamp Was Assuredly Cheap Enough.

You Will Find The Poet Who Wrings The Heart Of The World, Or The Foremost Captain Of His Time, Driving A Bargain Or Paring A Potato, Just As You Would Do.

The Only Hero Known To My Childhood Was Henry Clay.

Before The Birth Of The New Woman The Country Was Not An Intellectual Desert, As She Is Apt To Suppose. There Were Teachers Of Thehighest Grade, And Libraries, And Countless Circles In Our Towns And Villages Of Scholarly, Leisurely Folk, Who Loved Books, And Music, And Nature, And Lived Much Apart With Them. The Mad Craze For Money, Which Clutches At Our Souls To-day As La Grippe Does At Our Bodies, Was Hardly Known Then.

These Great Turning-days Of Life Cast No Shadow Before, Slip By Unconsciously. Only A Trifle, A Little Turn Of The Rudder, And The Ship Goes To Heaven Or Hell.

Every Child Was Taught From His Cradle That Money Was Mammon, The Chief Agent Of The Flesh And The Devil. As He Grew Up It Was His Duty As A Christian And A Gentleman To Appear To Despise Filthy Lucre, Whatever His Secret Opinion Of It Might Be.

We Don't Often Look Into These Unpleasant Details Of Our Great Struggle. We All Prefer To Think That Every Man Who Wore The Blue Or Gray Was A Philip Sidney At Heart.

The Histories Which We Have Of The Great Tragedy Give No Idea Of The General Wretchedness, The Squalid Misery, Which Entered Into Every Individual Life In The Region Given Up To The War. Where The Armies Camped The Destruction Was Absolute.

Nowhere In This Country, From Sea To Sea, Does Nature Comfort Us With Such Assurance Of Plenty, Such Rich And Tranquil Beauty As In Those Unsung, Unpainted Hills Of Pennsylvania.

Our Young People Have Come To Look Upon War As A Kind Of Beneficent Deity, Which Not Only Adds To The National Honor But Uplifts A Nation And Develops Patriotism And Courage. That Is All True. But It Is Only Fair, Too, To Let Them Know That The Garments Of The Deity Are Filthy And That Some Of Her Influences Debase And Befoul A People.

To Preach A Sermon Or Edit A Newspaper Were The Two Things In Life Which I Always Felt I Could Do With Credit To Myself And Benefit To The World, If I Only Had The Chance.

Every Child Was Taught From His Cradle That Money Was Mammon, The Chief Agent Of The Flesh And The Devil.

It Is A Good Rule Never To See Or Talk To The Man Whose Words Have Wrung Your Heart, Or Helped It, Just As It Is Wise Not To Look Down Too Closely At The Luminous Glow Which Sometimes Shines On Your Path On A Summer Night, If You Would Not See The Ugly Worm Below.

For, After All, Put It As We May To Ourselves, We Are All Of Us From Birth To Death Guests At A Table Which We Did Not Spread. The Sun, The Earth, Love, Friends, Our Very Breath Are Parts Of The Banquet.... Shall We Think Of The Day As A Chance To Come Nearer To Our Host, And To Find Out Something Of Him Who Has Fed Us So Long?

No Man Surely Has So Short A Memory As The American.

Reform Is Born Of Need, Not Pity. No Vital Movement Of The People Has Worked Down, For Good Or Evil; Fermented, Instead, Carried Up The Heaving, Cloggy Mass.

I Have Never Seen An Adequate Description Anywhere Of The Amazement, The Uncomprehending Horror Of The Bulk Of The American People Which Preceded The Firing Of That Gun At Sumter. Politicians Or Far-sighted Leaders On Both Sides Knew What Was Coming. And It Is They Who Have Written Histories Of The War. But To The Easy-going Millions, Busied With Their Farms Or Shops, The Onrushing Disaster Was As Inexplicable As An Earthquake. Their Protest Arose From Sea To Sea Like The Clamor Of A Gigantic Hive Of Frightened Bees.

North And South Were Equally Confident That God Was On Their Side, And Appealed Incessantly To Him.

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It Is A Mistake To Talk Of The Twilight Of Age, Or The Blurred Sight Of Old People. The Long Day Grows Clearer At Its Close, And The Petty Fogs Of Prejudice Which Rose Between Us And Our Fellows In Youth Melt Away As The Sun Goes Down. At Last We See God's Creatures As They Are.

One Sees That Dead, Vacant Look Steal Over The Rarest, Finest Of Women's Faces . . . In The Very Midst, It May Be, Of Their Warmest Summer's Day; And Then One Can Guess At The Secret Of Intolerable Solitude That Lies Hid Beneath The Delicate Laces . . .

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America May Have Great Poets And Novelists, But She Never Will Have More Than One Necromancer.

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It Has Happened To Me To Meet Many Of The Men Of My Day Whom The World Agreed To Call Great.

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The New Englander Landed On A Stony, Barren Tract, And A Large Share Of His Strength During Two Centuries Has Gone To Force A Living Out Of It. Hence He Has Come To Regard Economy - A Necessary Unpleasant Quality At Best - As The Chief Of Virtues. He Has Cultivated Habits Which Verge On Closeness In Dealing With Food, And With The Expression Of Feeling, And Even - His Enemies Think - With Feeling Itself.

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